Heading into this summer’s epic-scale spin-off of 2003’s $480 million worldwide hit Bruce Almighty, Steve Carell was the hottest comedy star of the moment, with both the reputation of a savvy scene-stealer and a hit, Emmy-winning television show in the form of The Office. With a rumored budget of somewhere between $170 and $200 million, Evan Almighty was probably the most expensive straight-up comedy of all time, so its near-unanimous critical lambasting and meager returns (it just finally eked past the $100 million threshold at the end of September) have to feel like a rebuke on some level, an adjustment of the scales of comedy.

Evan Almighty exudes the feel of a meticulously corporate-vetted tale from every pore of its narrative; it’s a movie so nakedly designed to radiate broad appeal that it ends up being a totally unfunny bore for all. Carell’s fall follow-up, Dan in Real Life, is an intimately sketched affair that makes far better use of his talents, namely presenting a sort of rumpled, Everyman proxy for the slings and arrows of indignity that come with normal, day-to-day existence. The curious thing, then, is the irritating manner in which this Disney movie is being sold as something far less quirky than it is.

An airy, autumnal, ensemble family dramedy — in the mold of movies like The Family Stone and Home for the Holidays — built chiefly around one beleaguered character, Dan in Real Life stars Carell as Dan Burns, a widowed New Jersey newspaper advice columnist with three daughters, two teenagers and a fourth grader. He’s an inherently decent and upstanding guy, but one having trouble realizing his girls are growing up.

One wouldn’t necessarily glean this from the movie’s trailer and TV ads, however. A few moments of spontaneous catharsis (Dan dancing in a bar) and resignation (Dan telling a cop to “put it on his tab” after getting nailed with a ticket) are played up for generic comedy, but the problem is that these moments, lifted considerably from their original context, simply aren’t very funny or uniquely memorable as presented. If Evan Almighty had delivered a star-making mandate, I could understand this sham-job, because Carell’s drawing power would be firmly, indisputably established. Assuming that fans of Evan (to the degree that there were any) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin already have cash in hand, however, wouldn’t the smarter play be something along the lines of trying to expand Dan‘s audience by actually selling the movie as what it is — namely, a relationship comedy with a touch of mania and a little bit of grey in its palette?

After packing up his girls and heading to his parents’ place for a nuclear family reunion of sorts, Dan finds welcome reception from mom and dad (John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest, ably functioning as human set dressing). He also enjoys a chance encounter at a bookstore with Marie (Juliette Binoche, coasting by on transatlantic charm), but is soon crestfallen to learn that she’s the new girlfriend of his younger brother Mitch (Dane Cook). Complications then ensue as Dan and Marie dance around one another, keeping their harmless encounter secret from the rest of the family.

As the adapter of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and About a Boy, writer-director Peter Hedges has a firmly established background in familial dysfunction, and his previous film behind the camera, 2003’s Pieces of April, dealt with a black sheep, wayward daughter (Katie Holmes) putting on a Thanksgiving dinner for her dying mother and estranged family. For better or worse, Dan in Real Life is much more well-adjusted than those movies, if also less crisply and intricately drawn; points are earned for giving Dan’s daughters distinct personalities, but no one else in the family makes an impression. The film’s emotions certainly come through, though; whereas Evan Almighty smacked of scrupulously constructed mock sincerity, Dan in Real Life has an easy, amiable charm, especially to its early scenes. One feels coddled and loved, even before the dance-along group fitness workouts and Kennedy-esque games of touch football begin in the backyard. (Costumes and production design from J. Crew, and achingly on-the-nose music from Norwegian singer Sondre Lerche, meanwhile, further inflate the sense of the film as an ample, welcoming bosom.)

The problem is that Dan, as a professional dispenser of advice, would in theory have some greater situational realization of his acting out, and/or control over his behavior. Here, he doesn’t, and it irrevocably sabotages the realism of certain scenes. There certainly is, on balance, more good here than bad. A bit more convincingly portrayed bitterness, though, would have made the movie’s laughs all sweeter in contrast. For the full, original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Disney/Buena Vista, PG-13, 95 minutes)

After a heyday in the 1950s, for many years musicals were considered
not just box office poison, but something not to be attempted at all.
In 1994, James Brooks’ I’ll Do Anything — originally conceived and filmed as an old-fashioned movie musical,
with songs by Prince, Carole King and Sinead O’Connor, among others —
was famously gutted and released as a straight narrative, courtesy of a
couple savage test screening reactions. This millennium however, the
tune has changed. The film that most single-handedly helped transform
the moribund state of the musical was director Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling
2001 pop costume opera Moulin Rouge,
a worldwide smash to the tune of $120 million, and a Stateside critical
darling if theatrical under-performer (total gross: $57 million). The
very next year, Chicago rode a cleared path of public
consciousness and acceptance to $170 million in theaters, 13 Oscar
nominations and six victories, including a win for Best Picture.

Since then, though, musicals’ track record has been rather
hit-and-miss. A lot of the bigger-name stage modern Broadway
adaptations (Rent, Phantom of the Opera) have bombed or at least drastically underperformed, while High School Musical
became the Disney Channel’s highest-rated original programming of all
time, and a bonafide zeitgeist sensation. This summer, the buoyant,
teen-centric Hairspray punched through (a cult John Waters
flick remade into a stage musical remade into a film, for those keeping
score) to the tune of $120 million, introducing audiences to newcomer
Nikki Blonsky and showcasing John Travolta in a whole new light.
Hollywood must be pulling their hair out trying to figure out a formula
for the success of modern musicals, one that they can then apply to
their precious “four-quadrant” rubric. Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe, then, presents both challenges and some seeming hand-in-glove benefits. After an extended period of limited play the film has expanded nationwide, and while it still hasn’t cracked 1,000 theaters, it’s inching toward $20 million in theatrical receipts, something that can’t be said for the fast-falling Elizabeth: The Golden Age. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.